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We're seeing a sort of Wal-Martisation of this world - Pundit on BBC Radio 4
EU to stick age ratings on the Internet
EUROPE will introduce "child safe labels" for websites as part of a €55 million programme to protect kids online.
The EU's Safer Internet programme, given the green light by the European Parliament yesterday, will also establish national centres for reporting illegal content, fund public awareness campaigns, and co-ordinate academic research.
The age-rating system, which will operate like the voluntary system of computer games classification called PEGI, was stuck on the end of proposals by the European Parliament yesterday.
Vim Bekker, director of Nicam, the Dutch organisation that runs PEGI, said that another international effort to stick age ratings on websites ten years ago, called the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), had proved how problematic it was.
"It's difficult to have enough websites classified," he said. "I was told by experts that the total internet community was over 40 billion pages. New pages are created on a daily basis and they are changing all the time."
However, he said: "I wouldn't be surprised if most internet users were using just a few handfuls of sites. No-one is using the whole internet."
David Miles, UK representative of the Family Online Safety Institute, which runs ICRA, said: "It's interesting [Europe] should feel that's a requirement because there are already systems out there."
Websites that sign up to ICRA's programme classify content that is intended for over-18s. Parent's can download software that controls access to ICRA-rated pages. The World Wide Web Consortium is also building a system called Powder, with ICRA's help, that automatically detects whether a page contains adult content.
ICRA-rated websites classify their content according to a range of descriptors. Nudity, for example, can be classified as "Exposed breasts", "Bare buttocks", "Visible genitals", or "None of the above". It similarly classifies sexual material, violence, language and "potentially harmful activities" like smoking and drug use. All can be classified in the context of, say, news or medical information.
The Safer Internet proposal adopted by the European Parliament yesterday did not set out in detail how its internet rating system would work.
It said: "Efforts should be made to protect children through the development of, for example, effective age verification systems and voluntary certification labels."
A spokesman for the Parliament said the European Commission would likely put the idea out to tender and have a third party contractor start work on it next year. µ
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Age ratings are good as long as sales of such games are restricted to the proper age groups and parents carefully supervise the use of said games.
This is a money making scheme for a few lobbyists.

BTW, what is wrong with nudity? Seriously. Looks like the EU is just adapting the US system, and that is sick. Voluntarily, right!
This site contains porn. Select one option...

[ ] I am under 18

[ ] I really want to see porn

[ X ] I am under 18 and cannot imagine any situation where by lying I could get into trouble and I REALLY want to see porn.


Here's an idea, fire everybody involved with the coming about of this, then every year burn the equivalent of their wages in public, it'll be money better spent, and teaches kids something about right and wrong and the proper management of money and about making choices.

Kids shudnt pay video games eithur.
Kids shud shut up, mind they are manners, and lurn a coupla thinges or two abowt how theh reel wordl works.
STOP SHOOTEN EECH UTHER AND GET BACK TO YOU ARE HOMEWURK YA INGREATS.
What the hell is Grunchy on?

Is this how the teenagers in the UK write nowadays? (I’m pretty sure Grunchy is from the UK by the way the words are pronounced, no other English speaking country or person speaks English that way except for English people, and I’m also sure that Grunchy is a teenager because no self respecting adult writes that way)

By the looks of things, the majority of teenagers (not just in the UK) nowadays will probably end up below average in every way, until that becomes the average, which is sad, very, very sad! And THAT is where the EU and our governments should focus and spend our money on! Not weird projects made up by politicians who were bullied in school and never had any friends, who are influenced by other parties who have some sort of godlike idea of themselves. 

Our children are the result of not just our government, but mainly because their parents are still that, children, people that should never had any kids themselves in the first place. It’s a vicious circle, that can be blamed by their parents and their parents, our society and our government. WHAT are we going to do about it, because if the government doesn’t step in and change their spending habits and spend more on our education and social systems and organisations etc, our children and parents wont gain what is necessary to become human! But our government is chosen by us, the dilemma!

I may sound like a frustrated 60 year old, but I’m actually in my mid 20s, dead on, can you figure it out?
Why should money be spent on policing the internet US-style? Parental supervision would solve this one at no additional cost.

If kids are given unsupervised internet access, that's not a responsibility the European Parliament should have to take on. If there's an added cost to site design in order to comply with this, that too should not be forced upon website owners.

Over-concerned parents should either use filtering software or supervise their kids' internet use - not force the rest of us to fund this.
They should also be taught how to spell.
If parental supervision was a reality, we wouldn't need ratings or age checks on the Internet because parents would be on the ball about it.
And ratings and such don't count for a damn if the kid goes "Hey, Dad, could'ya click me through this ?" and the befuddled dad doesn't even look at what's going on and clicks.
I mean, some "parents" are stupid enough to buy their <16 kids games that rated for >16, then complain about violence, sex and morals in the game.
Then you have people that aren't even parents but complain about it anyway.
Ratings won't make the slightest difference.
I think there's nothing wrong with having sites voluntarily ask for an official 'safe for kids' label so that parents if they wish can use a filter, but to let the idiotic internet community and insane religious nuts have a change to report sites to harass them, that's a whole different ballgame, and that's what a concept like this can expect to achieve.
And this might well be what they hope to sneak in since there's a foul fungus growing of religious politicians and member states, as well as america-lovers, that just dream about pushing their crap on the sane people in the EU/world.
This feeble attempt can only limit exposure from the child's standpoint.

This classification is to KEEP the porn industry from this pain of reality:

Independent women are saying NO! More than ever, that's good, but sex sickos feeding their brains with pornographic material are going towards the weaker individual, mainly children. They want their fantasy a certain way his controlled way and this is forced on children and this starts with any kind of pornography.

Plus I said this before, pornography is also abusing the environment, computers powered up all over the world for this? The planet's resources used for this? Then more used water to clean up the mess? More power used to clean the water? This cyber orgy must stop!
We've just removed all mentions of ICRA from our site, including the labelling because their own site (FOSI) provides links to material inappropriate for children and young persons, this contravenes our own site policy.
OK Grunchy, we get your point, please stop ruining the reputations of teenagers everywhere. Is this what people really think we are like? No wonder we get dirty looks. And as for the new restriction regime, what a load of rubbish. The world is in recession and we spend thousands of pounds on paying these buffoons to come up with pointless and expensive action plans! Go back to your drawing boards, and fix the economy before its too late.
You really think this will stop anybody from looking at stuff they want? No way, there are plenty of new sites everyday and there are proxy sites that allow you to view a website without really going to it. No government could completely block it, without taking the whole internet away or giving a list of ok sites to go to. And why is everybody talking about the american way. America has the same programs that everybody in the world can get, most you can get online for free. Plus only a small percentage of kids are from young mothers, as JK wonderfully decided to rant about. Phil, what you are saying doesn't make a lot of sense, just because somebody decides to look at porn doesn't mean they are going to mystically start doing porn videos with old men, and how does pornography pollute the world, it doesn't release toxic sludge into the air or anything, and I don't get the water and energy part of the rant either. Also W.- was right that they shouldn't have people that aren't open-minded to how other people view things and only have rudimentary knowledge on the internet and computer decide on how to run it. These men and women probably don't even know how to make a website, let alone decide what should be shown on it. I agree with Anonymous that the world, not just the EU, has a bigger problem, one that the governments everywhere should be focusing on, not some feeble attempt to block stuff that they don't want kids to see. They need to focus on the more important issues, not just doing some things that make them look better in the public eye.